


learn me hard, oh learn me right

by lapoubelle



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Bellamy has a lot of feelings, F/M, and freaks out over it, doctor!clarke, professor!bellamy, the big MD vs PhD debate between these two nerds
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-15
Updated: 2018-08-15
Packaged: 2019-06-27 18:19:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,486
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15690792
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lapoubelle/pseuds/lapoubelle
Summary: If Clarke were to leave by detaching herself from his world, she’s going to leave on her own terms. There’s no way in hell he’d let her go otherwise, universe be damned.OR: Clarke has a minor medical emergency and Bellamy is her emergency contact and promptly freaks out over it. Feelings surface.





	learn me hard, oh learn me right

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! Title is from "Not With Haste" by Mumford and Sons. (I know Babel was released in 2012 but I'm still not over it, okay.)
> 
> Here's a fic. Please excuse any inaccuracies, I tried my best but reality doesn't always make for good fic so I had to twist some things around. I wrote this on my phone in an hour and a half because I just couldn't get it out of my head, so here's what I have to offer. Enjoy!

Bellamy gets the phone call just as he steps into his office. 

“Bellamy Blake?”

It was an unknown number. One of those that the only name that shows up is the name of the city where the call came from. He should have been more prepared for the austere tone. 

“Yes, this is Bellamy.” He tries hard not to sound like he’s unsure. 

“We have you listed as Clarke Griffin’s emergency contact. She had an accident at work.” 

Time stops. He feels his heart stagger for a fraction of a second before setting an erratic pace. His grip on the phone is suddenly clammy. 

“I’ll be right there.”

 

Clarke’s a Doctor. A medical doctor. The amount of times she’s teased his own doctorate and the banter with no actual heat to it that starts when Clarke calls him Dr. Blake is a testament to that fact. She shouldn’t be in an accident. Doctors aren’t supposed to get hurt. They fix hurt people. They save lives. Their life shouldn’t be in need of saving, for Christ’s sake. 

It’s like a game of Doctor Dodgeball—if the Doctor gets hurt then they’re all dead. Doctors shouldn’t get hurt. 

He barely registers the drive over to the hospital. He arrives at the emergency room entrance, the same one he’s picked Clarke up from numerous times before. The white concrete bench she sits on while waiting for him is occupied by a someone in scrubs and a surgical cap, smoking. The irony of a doctor partaking in something as damaging as cigarettes is something Bellamy’s never wrapped his head around. 

The rush of cold air that hits him when he steps through the automatic doors that lead into the ER is what clears the haze. The blurred edges of his vision is suddenly gone and he feels the stark white lights of the emergency room. The scent of antiseptic and cleaning solution is strong. 

He makes eye contact with a girl wearing a bright red shirt, the word “volunteer” just below her collar. “I’m— my friend. She’s at the hospital.” 

She nods, like she understands. Bellamy doesn’t. 

“Did she come in via ambulance?”   
   
“No. She’s works here. I, ah— I got a call, she’s hurt and she’s in the ER.” 

She asks for Clarke’s name. “Okay, I’ll go check inside and I’ll have you stay here for a minute.” 

Bellamy almost protests but she’s walking away before he can. 

It feels like forever before she comes back but it must have only a minute or two. The waiting room is full but he barely feels the stares. He doesn’t care if he looks like a frantic stranger standing in the middle of the emergency waiting room. Clarke’s inside somewhere and he doesn’t know how to get to her and the feeling of uselessness comes back to him at full force. He’s spent too many hours in emergency room wait rooms feeling like there’s nothing he could do. 

The volunteer comes back and has him follow her through the waiting room and into another pair of doors that lead into the actual emergency department. He dimly registers her telling him what bed Clarke is in but he’s too busy looking at every person in a bed, needing to assure himself that it’s not Clarke. 

When they reach a little room, he finally sees a flash of blonde hair that he swears he’d know from anywhere. 

He mumbles a thank you to the volunteer who takes off as soon as Bellamy’s pushing the door open. 

Clarke’s sleeping. 

That’s what it looks like anyway, but as soon as Bellamy closes the door behind him her eyes flutter. He’s by her side in an instant. 

Her eyes open slowly. Bellamy wants to run his eyes over her laying body just to assure himself that she’s in one piece but he can’t quite let Clarke’s gaze go. 

She smiles softly. Bellamy feels his chest cave in, releasing a breath he didn’t realize he was holding. He chokes out a relieved laugh, delirious but happy nonetheless. 

“What the fuck, Clarke.”

It’s her turn to cough out a laugh. 

He picks up her hand between the both of his, giving it a squeeze. To remind her he’s there but also mostly to remind him _she_ ’s there. Alive. Mostly well—he thinks. “What happened?” 

“It’s dumb. We were 6 hours into an 8 hour surgery and I passed out like a wimp. Like an inexperienced med student, Bell.” She groans. “I was dehydrated and relatively stagnant on my feet for six hours, coupled with my already poor circulation—it wasn’t good.” 

Bellamy shakes his head. “You can’t expect to win the PhD vs MD debate if you, the MD, can’t even do what you’re supposed to do and take care of yourself.” 

Clarke laughs. 

“Sorry, I’ll try better next time.”

“Damn right, you will.” He rubs a hand over his face. “Fuck, you really scared me. You’re never allowed to do that ever again.” 

She tugs on his wrist and pulls it down beside her again, twining their fingers together. “I know. I wish I can say I’m sorry but I’m the one in the hospital bed here, I’ve done my due diligence.” 

He appreciates her attempt at humour. He looks down her hospital gown, around the stark white room with too many wires and monitors. “When can you go home?” 

Clarke sighs. “Ideally now.”

“I’ll see what I can do.” 

 

He manages to locate the nurse in charge of Clarke, asking if he can take her home. She responds by giving him a clipboard full of paperwork to fill out and a snort, “Doctors make the worst patients. Yes, take her home and away from the hospital for at least twenty-four hours.” 

He reports back to Clarke and she responds with a good amount of indignation on behalf of her fellow MDs but Bellamy takes that as a point for his team. 

He quickly fills out the paperwork, surprising himself by how much he actually knows, only needing bits of medical history from Clarke before completing everything. 

“Uh—there’s a bit here, for your emergency contact. I’m still listed.” 

Clarke blinks at him. 

“If you want you could change it. I know I was just one now because I was the one who took you in when you sprained your wrist and you didn’t have your phone to pull up your mom’s contact information.” 

He looks at her again, she’s smiling that smile at him. The one where she looks like she knows exactly what he’s saying even when he doesn’t. She probably does, if he’s being honest. She’s the only one who ever really gets it. 

“Bellamy, do you want to be my emergency contact?”

He looks down at the paper again, reading his name and a crude fax of his signature from two years ago. 

“Yeah, of course.” 

 

He hands in the papers and the nurse gives him instructions on how to properly make sure Clarke recovers. Fortunately for everyone it mainly includes making her drink a lot of water and keeping a light schedule. 

Clarke insists she can take care of herself in her own apartment. Bellamy insists otherwise. At the end they compromise and make a detour to Bellamy’s apartment closer to the university so he can pack a small bag with clothes and toiletries to take to Clarke’s apartment. 

Bellamy makes an annoyed sound at the back of his throat when he remembers Clarke’s apartment is on the third floor and no functioning elevator. 

“I swear, for the amount of money you pay the H.O.A., it’s absurd they still can’t fix your stupid elevators.” 

Clarke snorts but he can tell she’s tired. He bites back another offer to carry her up, knowing she’ll try and increase her pace instead of letting him see she’s actually exhausted just to prove a point.

He respects her decision and she’s nothing but stubborn. He’s behind her anyway, if she falls, she falls on him—he’ll always catch her. 

Once inside the apartment, Bellamy gets Clarke situated on the couch with Netflix loading while he scrounges around her kitchen for something to make for dinner. 

When the only thing he could find is a wilted pack of spinach and soy milk in the fridge he sighs and tells Clarke he’s ordering Thai food. 

He knows he’s being, well, a lot. Fretting and needing to feel like he’s doing something for the betterment of Clarke’s condition is the only thing keeping him from spiralling into the same mess he was before he found Clarke alive and relatively well. 

He’s sure if he sat down next to her on the couch he’s not going to be able to resist reaching over and touching her. Holding her hand or putting an arm around her to ensure that she’s there, she’s with him, she’s okay. 

Clarke’s always been the one who dealt with problems, the one who made sure everything was fine. She’s a solid figure in an otherwise chaotic world. She makes sense when nothing else does. She takes care of problems and resolves issues as if it they are just another thing on her to-do list. That’s just the way she is, she can’t rest until she’s happy with the way the world around her works. She keeps the world centred. 

Losing Clarke will cause a tilt in his axis. 

Bellamy’s grown enough as an individual to distinguish between dependency and actual want. His tumultuous relationship with his sister was a lesson learned the hard way. He depended on Octavia to keep him going, to give him purpose. But that lead to an unhealthy and imbalanced need that destroyed their relationship. With Clarke, he knows he needs her but he can survive without her, all things considered. If Clarke were to walk away now, he’d still be able to stand. He’s like a tree. He’s grown around Clarke. If she left now, she’d leave a Clarke-sized hole on the trunk and nothing will ever fill that. 

If Clarke were to leave by detaching herself from his world, she’s going to leave on her own terms. There’s no way in hell he’d let her go otherwise, universe be damned. 

“Hey.” Her voice is soft, she’s looking at him as if he was the one who was confined in the emergency room today. “You okay?”

He smiles. “Yeah. Just thinking about how annoyed the people over at the Thai place must be if they find out it’s us ordering again and that they have to walk up the stairs with all the food again.” 

Clarke snorts, “I’m not a monster. I tip generously.” 

 

When he’s placed the order he sits on the couch, and immediately, she curls up on his side. 

“Thanks for staying with me.”

“Of course.”

She doesn’t say anything, burrowing closer into his side instead. 

After dinner, they watch copious amounts of Brooklyn 99 before calling it a night. Or really Clarke just falls asleep on him and he shakes her gently, tells her it’s bed time, and they both pretend she wasn’t already asleep. 

It’s when she’s in her own bed, that he realizes he needs to say something. He’s sitting on the side, reaching over to fix the pillows around her when he chances a look at her laying form. He can’t help but remember how she looked laying in the hospital bed earlier, the bright white lights making her look paler than she already is. Paler than he would ever like to see her. 

She feels his eyes and meets them. 

“You know, I was scared today,” he starts, “I don’t think I even knew how scared I was until I finally saw you in the E.R.” 

She shifts closer to him. “Bellamy. I know today was scary but I promise it really wasn’t a big deal. I’m convinced they only called you because they wanted someone to get me away from the hospital as soon as possible.”

“I know. Fuck. I know.” 

She’s still looking at him, eyes searching his because she knows he’s not done yet. 

“Hear me out okay? I never want to lose you. My life with you is so much better than I ever thought I was allowed to have. Before today, I’ve never thought about life without you because it never once crossed my mind you might not be a part of my future. And fuck, that’s a scary feeling. I want you. Now. In the future. Ideally, I’d want you around forever—if you’d like.”

He’s looking at her now, her lips parted, eyes wide. 

“I would.” 

He’s the one who finally reaches over and pulls her closer, lips finding purchase on hers. 

She’s the one who escalates it, tongue slipping out to taste the seam of his lips and the inside of his mouth. He opens up with a moan, letting her take over the kiss and consume him. 

He pulls her into his lap. And having her in his arms, close and warm, is the best thing he’s ever felt. 

She breaks the kiss to pant against his temple as he trails a burning path of kisses down her neck and the space where her neck meets shoulder. 

“I’m so glad your tendency for theatrics worked in my favour. All I had to do was pass out for you to realize that I should be in your life forever.” 

“And that’s why you’re the head and I’m the heart.” 

“Are you saying MDs are heartless?” 

“I am not _not_ saying it.” 

“We’ve only been dating for a total of two minutes and already you’re calling me heartless.”

“We’ve only been making out for a total of a minute and already you’re breaking it off to argue with me.” 

“I think that’s— _oh_ —that’s the beauty of us though.” 

“What?” he says against her lips. 

It’s quiet for a bit, save for the sound of kissing. 

Clarke’s the one who takes a breath, pausing to answer the question, “We balance each other.” 

He pulls back this time, earning an annoyed sound from her as he displaces her lips from his jaw. “We do, huh?” Clarke sounded so sure, he needs to hear it again. 

The lust in her eyes is replaced with something softer, something warm and it makes Bellamy want to cry for some reason. 

“Yeah. I’m saving lives and meanwhile you’re saving mine—after all, someone has to. It’s a good system, what we have.” She winds her arms around his neck, tugging softly at the hair on his nape. 

He pulls her impossibly closer. Placing a hand on her hip while the other cupped her cheek, holding her steady and sure. He’s wrapped around her, and he knows in that moment and if she did ever walk away he’d feel it to his very core. 

“Something like that, yeah.” 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Any feedback and constructive criticism would be appreciated. 
> 
> Find me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/blakegrffns).


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